1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic capacitor and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a high capacitance multilayer ceramic capacitor having excellent dielectric properties and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, electronic components using a ceramic material, such as a capacitor, an inductor, a piezoelectric element, a varistor, a thermistor, or the like, include a ceramic body made of a ceramic material, internal electrodes formed in the ceramic body, and external electrodes mounted on external surfaces of the ceramic body so as to be connected to the internal electrodes.
Among ceramic electronic components, a multilayer ceramic capacitor includes a plurality of stacked dielectric layers, internal electrodes disposed to face each other, having the dielectric layer therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected to the internal electrodes.
Multilayer ceramic capacitors have been widely used as components in mobile communications devices such as laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, and the like, due to advantages thereof such as a small size, high capacitance, ease of mounting, or the like.
Recently, as electronic products have been miniaturized and multi-functionalized, chip components have also tended to be miniaturized and multi-functionalized. As a result, there is a need to miniaturize multilayer ceramic capacitors and increase the capacity thereof.
In general, multilayer ceramic capacitors have been manufactured as follows. First, a ceramic green sheet is prepared, and a conductive paste is printed on the ceramic green sheet to form the internal electrode. The ceramic green sheets having the internal electrodes formed thereon are stacked in an amount of several tens of layers to several hundreds of layers to fabricate a green ceramic multilayer body. Thereafter, the green ceramic multilayer body is compressed under conditions of high temperature and high pressure to fabricate a hard green ceramic multilayer body, and a cutting process is performed on the ceramic multilayer body to fabricate a green chip. Next, the green chip is calcined and sintered, and the external electrodes are formed thereon to complete the multilayer ceramic capacitor.
In the case in which the multilayer ceramic capacitor is formed by the above-mentioned method, a length of an oxide layer at an edge of the internal electrode may be irregularly formed, such that dielectric properties may be significantly deteriorated.
The following Related Art Document discloses a multilayer ceramic capacitor in which an occupation rate of an abnormal region formed by solid-solubilizing a metal oxide in length and height directions of both edges of an internal electrode is 85% or more in order to suppress degradation in insulation resistance of a ceramic electronic component. However, a length of an oxide layer in both edges of the internal electrode in a width direction is not controlled, such that deterioration in dielectric properties may be not still prevented.